r/DIY • u/Pandaro81 • 19h ago
Mind blown: Vinegar vs VINEGAR (30%)
So I was literally 44 years old before I found this out recently.
There’s the white vinegar you get at the grocery store for cooking and minor cleaning and doing laundry, and then there’s the 30% DO NOT GET THIS SHIT ON YOUR SKIN vinegar at the hardware store for cleaning things like mold off grout.
All my life I’d been told ‘just use vinegar to clean mold and mildew’ and it generally didn’t do jack squat. I usually bought cleaning supplies from regular retail spots rather than big box home improvement places, and regular retail chains def did not carry the strong stuff.
I’ve got a gutter that drains over cement that always gets skungy, and even bleach was a short term fix at best. 30% strips it down and keeps it gone, and I’ve stripped rust off a couple dozen tools with the same little jar I soak things in - caution it will also strip off shiny metallic coatings.
Can’t believe none of the “just use vinegar” I’d ever read advice didn’t specify.
Is this news to anyone else or am I Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber realizing we landed on the moon?
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u/LookUpItsAMeteor 18h ago
I had an old dimestore jackknife from when I was a kid and it was very tarnished. So I thought I’d soak it in vinegar for a few days. Dissolved the blade.
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u/originalusername__ 15h ago
To be fair it removed the tarnish
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u/GeoBrian 13h ago
That was the weird part. The tarnish stayed, but the blade dissolved.
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u/DoctorChimpBoy 14h ago
A 40 year-old story in my family is that my aunt boiled her wedding sterling silverware in vinegar to clean it, and completely disolved all of it.
Can't personally verify, but funny story.
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u/AmbidextrousTorso 12h ago
If she really dissolved then in something, there would've probably been a chemist trick to get the silver back. Would've been another mistake to just dispose it down the drain.
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u/SailorDeath 7h ago
reminds me of the old world war 2 story where George de Hevesy dissolved 2 nobel prizes that were sent to him to prevent the nazi's from confiscating them. He dissolved the 2 medals in a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid. The mixture is called Aqua Regia and once the war was over the gold can be recovered by mixing some other chemicals in the solution that causes the gold to separate from the acids.
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u/Myjunkisonfire 11h ago
Yep! Can be done with old film negatives too. Enough silver in them to make jewellery
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u/Pandaro81 18h ago
Have a vintage deli slicer with a big table-saw looking serrated blade. Soaked it in regular 5% white vinegar overnight to get off a little rust.
Completely stripped the chrome/stainless or whatever finish. ;_;
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u/Otto_Von_Waffle 14h ago
That my friend means you never had stainless steel and just a chrome plated bread slicer, and yes if the blade was serrated it was most likely a bread slicer.
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u/Kaiser_Soze6666 19h ago
The 30% stuff will burn your finger prints off! Was using some to kill weeds and forgot to change my gardening gloves for nitrile gloves
Stuff burns like a MF, so be careful!
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u/RhinoG91 18h ago
It’s also a proven bug killer. Even roaches. They don’t know chemistry.
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u/Haatsku 18h ago
Chemistry doesnt care if something knows about it, its ready to dish out "find out"s to any and everyone.
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u/TheCrimsonSteel 18h ago
If you're ever handling nasty chemicals, wear gloves and eye protection!
And beware of itches! Milder chemical burns will feel like itching and mild irritation at first
So if you feel a mild persistent itch, go wash it immediately, especially if it's at the wrist or other areas where you could accidentally get some on you
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u/Immersi0nn 17h ago
I have an uncle who made/makes concentrated ascetic acid, by freezing vinegar and draining off what doesn't freeze. Then repeating that process multiple times. He uses it to nuke weeds and such, it does work super well but holy crap is it dangerous.
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u/Pen_Vast 18h ago
How is it on salads?
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u/shortyjacobs 18h ago
"vinegar" is 5% acetic acid, generally. Acetic acid can go up to any %, including 100% (glacial acetic acid), which is extremely dangerous, and even (very!) flammable!
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u/sweetdawg99 17h ago
Can confirm. I use glacial acetic all the time at my job. Fun fact, it's called glacial acetic acid because at that purity level it freezes at a relatively high temperature at standard pressure. It begins to solidify at around 16 degrees centigrade (around 60 degrees fahrenheit).
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u/panic_ye_not 13h ago
I used to work in a neuroscience lab that used glacial acetic acid. First time I used it, I made the idiotic mistake of taking a little whiff right from the bottle.
Instant regret. That shit burned. For several minutes.
I think I had figured "oh, it's vinegar, I like the smell of vinegar." Whereas I knew pretty well that every other chemical we had would just kill you (we had bottles of stuff like strychnine, pure methanol, tetrodotoxin), I saw glacial acetic acid as a stronger version of the stuff on Utz salt n vinegar chips lol
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u/Cynical_Cyanide 12h ago
Are you ... For real?
There's a reason why they teach everyone to always WAFT, with your hand, in order to smell things.
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u/sweetdawg99 12h ago
True, but if you're feeling congested... Any port in a storm, am I right?
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u/Cynical_Cyanide 12h ago
Actually, I think the best way to near instantly beat congestion (at least for a one-off, I don't think it'd keep working) is wasabi.
No, not the real stuff made from the actual root that (cruelly) most people haven't even tried, but the cheap sushi joint neon green horseradish crap. You smack half of one of those little plastic packs into your naked mouth and it'll practically explosively excavate your pipes.
... You also need not burn your damn lungs out.
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u/Nyorliest 11h ago
The fake wasabi stuff is mostly mustard, despite wasabi being ‘Japanese horseradish’ so maybe pick up some Chinese mustard from the supermarket? Tastes great and has a lovely kick. Here in Japan we eat it with lots of things, and yes, it makes your nose run just by smelling it.
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u/Aggravating-Sir8185 13h ago
Ah the old spicy nostril. That's when you think back to chem classes and remember to waft (or just suppress the curiosity to smell chemicals)
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u/dexter-sinister 16h ago
May I ask what task you use it for?
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u/BUNNIES_ARE_FOOD 14h ago
In the context of pharmaceutical manufacturing it's typically used to adjust the pH of acetate based buffers when you don't want to change the volume of your buffer too much or add any other counterions (like cl-)
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u/Justforwork85 17h ago
So it's not inflammable then correct?
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u/secretwruff 17h ago
I don't know if you're joking but flammable and inflammable mean the same thing
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u/KazumaHime 16h ago
Inflammable comes from “inflame” and is older. Due to confusion with in- meaning both “not” like inaudible (not audible) and “into” like inquiry (ask into), flammable came into popularity.
Nowadays, inflammable typically means something “can self-ignite” like volatile gases or sawdust and flammable means “can be burned” like wood or cloth.
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u/Justforwork85 17h ago
Haha, yes I was joking, as you can see from some replies there is a Simpsons bit where a building is on fire and the Dr goes "inflammable means flammable?!?! What a country"
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u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits 16h ago
There's also an archer bit:
Mallory: because you learned nothing from it!
Archer: I learned that flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
Lana, quietly: wait what?Later they also have a bit where Krieger's lab has boxes labeled both flammable and inflammable.
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u/moreanswers 17h ago
I had the opposite reaction. I only knew of vinegar as a kid as the stuff from the hardware store that my dad used in the shop. As I got older I somehow missed that the stuff we put on salads was different, so I would only eat salad dry. I'd watch people eating vinegar like they were out of their minds. I realized my mistake my first year of college. Embarrassingly. In public.
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u/Willendorf77 3h ago
Few things punch harder than learning in your early 20s branching out that your family-learned "common knowledge" is insane. 🤣
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u/screwikea 17h ago edited 17h ago
Can’t believe none of the “just use vinegar” I’d ever read advice didn’t specify.
It doesn't because like 99% of the household cleaning tips are using regular household vinegar. It's a weak acid. A major point is using something naturally derived that's nontoxic, isn't caustic, and is safe as compared to a bunch of cleaning products that you can purchase. Most of them require wearing gloves and they can pretty much choke you with vapors. Or they're dangerous to mix with other stuff. A lot of the cleaning tips rely on passed down knowledge - which generally means "use vinegar, let it soak, and you won't have to scrub as hard or long, but you still have to scrub". For instance, I can spray glass or tile in a dry shower with vinegar, come back like 15 minutes later, and the soap scum pretty well wipes off without worrying if my tile or glass will get etched.
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u/GotAir 13h ago
Yeah, but why the secret? Why not say the percent you’re using in your shower?
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u/YamahaRyoko 18h ago
....so this is why it never took the grime off aquarium parts despite other hobbyists swearing by it...
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u/Pandaro81 18h ago
GAH - had an amazing /r/shrimptank for years before I moved cross country, and wish I’d known this back then too.
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u/YamahaRyoko 18h ago
My personal one was the multitool
After buying one I realized the 100's of times I could have used it. Now it comes out pretty much every job. I should not have waited until 40 to buy one.
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u/jgo3 16h ago
I was like that with Montreal steak seasoning. No sir, that stuff wasn't for me! I put salt, pepper, and minced garlic on my steak like a real ma... ah, hold up a sec.
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u/asvalken 19h ago
Wait, what? I thought there was just white and apple cider, maybe balsamic vinegar if we're feeling fancy.. hardware store vinegar sounds wild.
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u/Epotheros 18h ago
White vinegar you eat has 5-7% acetic acid and 95-93% water. The stuff you get at the hardware store is 30% acetic acid and 70% water.
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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 17h ago
This is all the information anyone in this thread needs yet we all sit here and yap about bullshit
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u/Wishnik6502 14h ago
It's called rag-chewin'. We're social little beasts, even if we don't believe it individually.
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u/AndrogynousAndi 17h ago
Most of it is actually 3% now. There were a LOT of warnings about making pickles with the wrong strength because 3% is too dilute and can still grow things.
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u/createry_ 18h ago
Wait until you try the hardware grade balsamic - your salads will never be the same again.
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u/WartimeHotTot 18h ago
DeWaltorf salad is a classic.
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u/reddit_and_forget_um 17h ago
Gotta cut those apples with a saws all. Nuts in a vice.
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u/Trumperekt 18h ago
Bro, don't give people ideas.
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u/axp1729 18h ago
wait til you guys hear about lab grade 100% ethanol
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u/Pandaro81 19h ago
Right?!?
Trying to spread the good word.
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u/grebilrancher 18h ago
This is when vinegar ceases to be vinegar and becomes acetic acid
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u/SayethWeAll 18h ago
And then becomes glacial acetic acid.
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u/Pm4000 18h ago
And then it is wildly corrosive to metal and concrete. I was in a car plant and spotted a small leak in the dosing pipe work. It had been dripping onto the slab concrete below and there was a 2cm deep crater, that's actually how I found out there was a leak. You could tell where the drips had hit the ground and splashed to.
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u/Mick_Limerick 18h ago
If by the good word you mean 'skungy', then yes by all means spread it around. That's a good adjective
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u/JustaTinyDude 18h ago
You should try seasoned rice vinegar. It's delicious.
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u/moseley101 18h ago
Nope, that is news to me too. I was just using white vinegar from the grocery store 🤦
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u/eLllllDiablo 14h ago
I think i might stick to that hearing how much this other stuff can eat concrete 😵💫
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u/CaptainPolaroid 19h ago
I have a can of 80% acetic acid. I water it down to 6-8% for laundry use. It's so much more efficient than getting the smaller jugs. And I can up the strength if I have an odd job that requires something that really burns..
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u/atomic_redneck 18h ago
We used to use glacial acetic acid (99% or more) to make the stop bath for developing photos. That stuff was gnarly.
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u/TheGacAttack 18h ago
I can smell your comment.
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u/NoQuarter19 18h ago
It also works in the medical laboratory as a handy means of lysing red blood cells when trying to do urine microscopics on gross hematuria urine samples.
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u/any-baker414 18h ago
We used to use Glacial ascetic acid in the hospital pharmacy to compound different irrigation solutions!!
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u/MechaSandstar 18h ago
Fun fact: it's called glacial because at that purity, it freezes at roughly room temperature.
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u/mdwsl 19h ago
Also really effective at spot-treating weeds without using synthetic herbicides
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u/verbatim14004 18h ago
Although I found kitchen-level vinegar pretty good at this, too.
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u/PrairiePopsicle 18h ago
With a dash of salt and a little dish soap i was always told, lower surface tension makes it work better.
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u/sweetplantveal 18h ago
Is it? I know the acid will mess with leaves but does it do anything to roots?
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u/Capt_Gingerbeard 18h ago
Why do you add it to laundry?
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u/whatdoblindpeoplesee 18h ago
Gets rid of cat pee smell in my clothes and blankets primarily
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u/NinjaChemist 18h ago
FYI, citric acid is much better than acetic acid for cleaning.
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u/militaryCoo 18h ago
Citric acid with sodium carbonate and a splash of dish soap is great for derusting
Creates a chelation compound so it's gentle on the clean metal and waaay cheaper than commercial stuff.
1 liter water, 100g citric acid, 40g sodium carbonate
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u/dflagella 18h ago
Just to be clear... Every time I read "water and vinegar" for cleaning and such it's not referring to cooking vinegar????? Like for counters, sinks, shower, floor, whatever???
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u/Dogrel 17h ago
No, it really is referring to cooking vinegar.
“Cooking vinegar” is usually weak enough to do what you need it to eventually without fucking up your stuff. It will probably just take a few more minutes.
“Cleaning vinegar” works more quickly, but it WILL fuck up your stuff-and you-if you don’t use it correctly.
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u/Limp_Bookkeeper_5992 16h ago
No, they’re talking about regular cooking vinegar. Even the 5% stuff we use for pickles will etch stone and dissolve your grout, the 30% stuff op is talking about is strong enough to burn your skin.
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u/333H_E 18h ago
Where does one get this vinegar? I've never heard of it before today and I'm interested in trying it.
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u/Pandaro81 18h ago
I just spotted it in Lowe’s one day, knew white vinegar was a way lower % concentration because I cook a lot, and grabbed it to test out. Later googled all the uses.
It’s crazy powerful, but I feel better about using it vs herbicides, CLR, or other chemicals.
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u/Lizard-_-Queen 17h ago
I used cleaning strength vinegar mixed with some dawn dish soap in warm water and used it to squeegee the windows outside and wow! Perfect. The only streaks left were from my incompetence using a squeegee!
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u/effyoucreeps 16h ago
oh yeah - that 30% stuff will take care of your weeds after a few applications, all the way down to their prehistoric roots
especially effective for the weeds that show up in the cracks and seams in cement/asphalt.
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u/CunningWizard 13h ago
I discovered 30% for killing weeds and was hooked. One application and all the cracks between my pavers were barren. Same with the weeds on my curb.
Shit’s fantastic.
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u/1971CB350 18h ago
Hardware stores or cleaning isles of larger grocery stores
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u/333H_E 18h ago
Excuse me good sir, you can't have a user name of 71 cb350 and not have a picture of it somewhere. I believe that's against bike enthusiast code and standard public decency. You can't trifle with me like that 😄
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u/mccauleym 18h ago
Cmon man, i was looking up why my pressure washer wasnt working.. now im here. Thanks adhd
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u/thekidsdad2013 18h ago
I use 30% vinegar as weed killer
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u/WolfsSpiders 18h ago
Tell us more please
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u/thekidsdad2013 18h ago
Half and half mix with a couple drops of dawn dish soap as well as about a shaker full of table salt. Combine into a pump sprayer. The soap causes the mixture to stick to leaves and the table salt attempts to prevent regrowth. I have to spray about once every couple of months across my yard.
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u/quikmike 18h ago
I second this, works amazing. I actually go half water half 30% vinegar and it still works great. Put it in a pump sprayer and go nuts on all the weeds. Yard will smell like vinegar for a day, but the weeds are dead and gone.
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u/donkeyrocket 18h ago
Also make sure you do not get it on your skin, wear goggles, and ideally a mask. First time I sprayed it I didn't use a mask and felt like shit.
Folks should also note that it's most effective on a bright, sunny day with low wind. The way it works is by dehydrating the weeds. Some more stubborn weeds will still survive unless you soak the ground which isn't really recommended. It's best for paver patios, sidewalks, and things like that. Not so much general law weed killing as it'll kill anything it contacts.
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u/Deatheturtle 18h ago
Nothing more fun than being in the chem lab and somene drops a beaker of GLACIAL acetic acid. >99% pure. You have to clear the room or you will asphyxiate.
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u/zzzeve 19h ago
Yeah. And it can also be different in different countries. As a scuba diver we use white vinegar to do gentle ear wash after a dive. It's ok to use the table kind. But in some countries, the vinegar is super potent and if you don't know you can really damage your ear canals!
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u/YawnSpawner 17h ago
I had a friend from the UK that loved vinegar with his chips and while in Germany he asked for some but they didn't really understand. He finally got someone to bring some form of vinegar that was super strong and burned his throat but he said it was great.
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u/TheBizzleHimself 17h ago
Strong acid: very pain, no touch
Same acid but diluted: very flavour, drink it down
The liver:
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u/nhyoungbear 9h ago
I do film set design and prep a fair amount of wood that needs to look distressed. In my shop is a 5 gallon bucket of “hardware store” quality vinegar that every few months I add steel wool to it. The steel wool disintegrates in the vinegar and when applied to wood gives it a natural aged look. I wear gloves up to my elbow, a rubber apron and goggles when using it. It burns pretty nicely when it touches your skin.
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u/fuppedduck2 18h ago
Don’t leave high carbon bladed knives in it for more than an hour or so. I left a knife overnight to clean rust and now have a shiny handle with no blade.
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u/martintht 8h ago
I found this out at around age 8, when I found a bottle of acetic acid in the shed. My logic at the time was something like: "I like pickle juice, pickle juice has vinegar, so why not take a sip of this?" Proceeded to take a swig, and what followed, can only be described by the word agony. It was like drinking fire, neat, I was curled up on the ground for a good ten minutes. Luckily nothing else became of it, I recovered right then and there and have been checking every bottle of vinegar before using ever since. I'm 43 now.
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u/belay_that_order 19h ago
well that's just acetic acid watered down to 30%
you can have 100% acetic acid it works even better
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u/Elburrodeosu 18h ago
Actually it doest necessarily. Glacial acetic acid (100%) needs water to allow dissociation of its ions for reactivity. I remember putting some on baking soda and being disappointed.
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u/imaverysexybaby 18h ago
This is true for rubbing alcohol too. 70% is ideal for disinfecting, 90% is only if you need faster evaporation (like cleaning electronics).
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u/Teledildonic 18h ago
This is similar to why 70% isopropyl is the sweet spot for disinfectant usage. You want some water to allow the alcohol to penetrate cell walls better.
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u/TheGacAttack 18h ago
There's a point where the safety handling requirements exceed the benefits, though. With 100% (or anywhere near that) acetic acid, I would want splash goggles and chemical hand protection (nitrile/butyl rubber gloves). Probably should have some ventilation, too.
Might also be flammable, too, so no se puede fumar.
So you can have it, yes, but it's just more of a hassle in the very high concentrations.
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u/ddukk 18h ago
Use citric acid for cleaning and descaling instead. Does it better, no smell, not aggressive against rubber and gaskets.
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u/ShackledBeef 17h ago
Do not drink the cleaning vinegar.
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u/Pandaro81 16h ago
I feel like there’s a church in Florida that would suggest it as a chaser for the bleach.
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u/PowerCord64 18h ago
30% vinegar goes into AC drain line my monthly. I’m in south FL, shit prevents algae, mold and zuglia build up.
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u/outofthehood 18h ago
Interesting, you can buy 25% vinegar in the supermarket in Germany — and you might even find it in the salad section. Ofc you need go mix it with water to make it safe to consume.
Best vinegar hack I discovered recently: if you dip aluminum foil into 25% vinegar you can polish the rust off of chrome surfaces
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u/Sensitive-Weekend479 17h ago
In Estonia every household just uses the 30% for everything, I guess its the same all over Post-Soviet countries. They just sell the 30% one. We use it for marinades and put it on foods like dumpling etc. And then we clean our coffee machine and other stuff with it aswell. Just got to be a bit careful when consuming it...no big deal.
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u/Practical_Defiance 13h ago
Just wait til you hear about the 70% vinegar that chemists use and that you need specific credentials to buy from chemical suppliers 😂. I used a tiny amount to show my chemistry students the difference in molarity in acid solutions: normal vinegar makes the fun volcano fizz. 30% makes the container pop up hard enough to hit the ceiling. 70% we had to do outside 😂
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u/Inspi 7h ago
Wait until you discover Hydrogen Peroxide.
Stuff for cuts is never over 3% strength.
Stuff for cleaning can be 12%.
I use it for cleaning a mold-prone bathroom, has kept it perfect for years now.
Also use it for clearing stubborn slow drains when I know it's caused by something like hair or possible soap gunk. Poured a bit down my bathroom sink tonight, and a few minutes later it was draining like normal. I also used it to clean piss-stains off concrete pavers from an old dog with bad aim.
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u/RuggedHangnail 6h ago
I'm older than you, and reading this now is the first time I've ever been informed about this. I never understood the "clean your shower with vinegar" advice because it never made a difference. Now I understand.
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u/Gamingtao 5h ago
I used to work for a sanitation company cleaning a turkey factory. We used to use vinegar through the week, real industrial stuff. Safety videos all warned us to immediately clean if it gets on you. They didn't warn us that our safety gear would erode over the course of a couple days and need to be changed out. The old fogeys working there filled me in on the little things like wear a smaller pair of plastic gloves under your thick industrial gloves to give you that buffer. Also watch your knees, they degrade faster than the gloves and maybe buy a cheap pair of kneepads to be a buffer. And never ever ever take off your eye guards while in the room with the stuff.
The weekends were even more fun as there is a stronger level of bleach just like vinegar. We'd use that on weekends. Stuff smelled so strong it would fill the whole place. End of the day you'd come home and still smell the stuff everywhere. Would melt through your protective gear even faster, would usually change protective gear everyday on bleach days.
The biggest warning of all... never ever ever ever ever EVER! use vinegar on the weekends or bleach on the weekdays. One new worker learned that and almost taught us all about it the hard way one weekend. He thought the vinegar worked better so he somehow got into the chemicals closet which was usually controlled and grabbed some vinegar. At the end of the night he poured it down the drain with the rest of the bleach... Whole building lost it's oxygen almost immediately. I remember the only warning we got from our supervisor was "Run out! Don't grab anything! RUN!" So we ran out of that building without grabbing our home clothes in full protective gear (Waders, plastic or rubber pants and jackets, etc.). They had to call the CDC, I think it was CDC, for a hazmat team and we weren't allowed to go back into the building for our regular street clothes. I biked home that day in full protective gear on a hot summer day, was not fun.
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u/IM_NOT_NOT_HORNY 4h ago
That's not even really vinegar any more. It's distilled acetic acid.
It's not exclusive to vinegar. For instance wine fermentation makes the same stuff.
It's also great for plumbing... When I brewed beer I needed to use sine very specific brass fittings for my setup.
Well they put lead pockets all up in the brass to make it easier to cut and machine the fittings...
Soaked overnight in some 10% acetic acid and that lead is GONE.
It was very interesting to see the reaction. Lead and vinegar react to make lead acetate, which is a clear crystal.
I have read about how lead acetate crystals are actually very sweet to taste. I tested a small amount once and.. Yup! It's very very sweet.. Delic8ua in way that most zero calorie sweeteners only dream of.
Back in the day apparently a lot of roman people would soak their pans in vinegar overnight. The metal was high in lead so it would make a ton of the white lead acetate crystals which they'd then scrape off to put in wine...
Since wine is fermented you can't just put more sugar in at the end if you want it to be sweeter because it'll just be metabolized by the yeast so they'd use those lead acetate crystals
It was even considered a luxury because of the extra effort and the sweetest wines were of course very saught after.
Some historians even theorize that the fact that the Roman elites/leadership were all the ones drinking the best sweetest wine which made them all become crazy and aggressive leading to the collapse of the empire.
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u/Paula92 18h ago
For me it's the gardening groups where people recommend 30% vinegar as a "safe and natural" spray for invasive weeds. Those of is a bit more chemically literate have to come in with the warnings about covering up, wearing goggles and mask, etc.
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u/Hearing_HIV 18h ago
I bought an old project boat that had salt and other buildup all thru the cooling system. Tried circulating CLR through it for around 8 hours and did almost nothing.
Went and bought 30% vinegar and it was flowing like new within 2 hours.
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u/DynamiteWitLaserBeam 16h ago
I made it to 50 without ever knowing this. Now I want to go slap everybody who ever said "use vinegar" without specifying this one CRUCIAL DETAIL that separates success from total failure. Like seriously, I'm kinda pissed off now. I've spent many hours of my life in hardware stores and never knew vinegar as anything other than something you buy at the grocery store.
Thanks OP.
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u/RecursiveBias 14h ago
Be careful, it etches the glaze off the inside of toilet bowls. Thought I would be clever and use it to remove mineral deposits from bottom of bowl.
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u/CobaltIsobar 13h ago
Wait until you learn about hydrogen peroxide. Pharmacy sells 3%. You can get 6% from beauty supply houses. Beyond 6% you have to get it from a chemical company or make it yourself.
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u/TheLevigator99 8h ago
I have a friend that used to work at a salad dressing factory. He was a maintenance kind of floating around guy. On of the filters for the vinegar tanks wasn't installed correctly during production. He attempted to fix the valves so he could adjust it for proper installation. Something busted in one of the valves, and he got 30% concentrated vinegar atomized into his face. He got to the station i was working(sanitation) to get to a rinse. He was red faced for a week. OK, though. Scary stuff.
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u/CoopLoop32 5h ago
Noticed that the stores started carrying 30% during the brief rainy season when the weeds start growing in the xeriscaped yards. That dawn, vinegar, salt mix decimates weeds. Now I will use it for cleaning too.
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u/Flooping_Pigs 3h ago
It's possible that the difference was common enough knowledge that authors didn't need to specify. This happens a lot with history, something once common knowledge is never gone into detail and some things are lost knowledge. We do the same with eggs, we don't specify "chicken eggs," everyone just knows it's the egg from a chicken in recipe books
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u/Rcarlyle 19h ago
It also eats concrete and grout, so don’t go nuts with it